WellWorn Pages in a Leather Journal
by shywr1ter
Summary: Story 7 in this M/L collection is another one-shot for LJ's Lover100 prompt, 'Smell.' If there’s one thing upon which most M/L shippers seem to agree ... it’s that Logan smells yummy...
1. Complicated

**DISCLAIMER:** Dark Angel characters, and the lines quoted from several episodes included in this ficlet, lovingly borrowed from Cameron & Eglee, or those taking from them. No profits realized.

**A/N:** Real life has interfered lately with getting new fic produced, and because there were these little one-shots lying around in my computer, I decided to collect some of them here. They've been published elsewhere but not yet on FFN. Just some random, uncommected, M/L sort of fic... and this is the first, written in response to the prompt, "complicated." With apologies to those of you who have already seen them, thanks for taking a look -- and would love to hear what you think.

**oooooOOOOOOooooo**

**COMPLICATED**

**oooooOOOOOOooooo**

Another day ... another moment, or sound, or word... and another memory of Max would dance across his thoughts. In the handful of months since Max had become a steady presence in his life, Logan found it more and more difficult to keep his mind from thoughts of her.

"_Why was your friend trying to steal that stuff, anyway?"_

"_It's complicated..._"

His words to Matt were the understatement of the millennium - Max was complicated, her problems were complicated, their relationship and lives and connection were complicated ... _they_ were complicated ... and yet more and more, overriding everything else, even when focused on bringing down evil empires or sleazy politicians, it took all Logan had to not get lost in her smile, her laugh ... her huge brown eyes ... her tantalizing, feline grace...

"_So, what is it between you and Max?"_

"_I don't know. Something. I just don't know what._"

Ah, Zack ... the older brother who wasn't really a brother, and certainly didn't see Max only as a sister. Logan frowned a little at the thought. But Max had him firmly in her mind as a tough older brother, and that was where he would stay, for her.

...and where did _he_ stay, for Max, where did he fit? Did he have much of a place in her world? Logan rarely let himself consider it; too easy to get sucked into the hope that there was something between them, more than simply their _quid pro quo..._

"_You know, some guys are willing to rearrange their priorities when they find a girl who moves their furniture. In fact, some guys are even looking for it. Or so I've heard."_

_Move my furniture?_ Logan allowed himself to reflect. _Great way to say it, Max - move mountains, move heaven and earth, move my soul ... 'move my furniture...' _Did she suspect just how strongly she _did_ move him?

"_Got a thing for this girl, don't you?"_

"_Why does everybody keep saying that?_"

The sudden memory of Bling's bemused question, catching his infatuation with Max so soon after she popped back up in his life, made him chuckle, softly. He wanted to think it was merely the man's uncanny ability to see inside people - but as he'd responded at the time, it wasn't just Bling who'd seen it...

"Hey Logan!"

The sound of Bennett's cheery voice broke through his latest reverie, and Logan shook it off to smile up at his cousin. "Hey, yourself," he smiled in greeting as the new groom slid into the seat across from him. His smile widened as he considered the beaming face. "Look at you," he added in approval. "Married life seems to agree with you. When did you get back?"

"Wednesday night. Oh - thanks," he glanced up to the immaculate waiter who immediately appeared with a leather-bound menu, and pointed to Logan's glass of wine. "Whatever he has," he ordered. The man nodded silently and disappeared.

"And ... before I forget..." Logan turned to root around in his backpack briefly, then pulled out a slim, white folder. "Your 'papers.'"

Bennett grinned, taking the folder and sliding it into his jacket pocket. "Thanks. And thanks for taking charge of these; with all the craziness after the wedding I just could see them getting lost."

"Well, I think you'd still be married, even if you'd lost the license, but you might have some explaining to do to Marianne." Logan paused as the waiter returned immediately with Bennett's wine, then lifted his glass to him. "Congratulations, Bennett."

"Thanks," Bennett raised his own glass in a returned salute, "and thanks again for being there for us, at the wedding. It was good to have you there."

"I wouldn't have missed it," Logan said, sincerely.

"_Best man," Max had drawled, impressed ... and teasing him. But she had come along as his date, willingly, and had truly shined among Seattle's pampered and feted. And he had managed, finally, just that once, to overcome all the hang-ups and issues to tell her so. "You were the most beautiful woman there..."_

...and the smile that he had seen in return made him hope that, even if they weren't 'like that,' they could be something...

Logan worked to move his attention away from Max and back to his cousin, as Bennett talked about his honeymoon and Marianne, the flight home and Marianne, getting back to the office and Marianne ... and Marianne...

"...it's really amazing, Logan, you know?" Bennett admitted, smitten. "To have someone to care for you ... good times and bad..."

"_I thought ... I was so scared. The ambulance..."_

"_It's okay..."_

Involuntarily, Logan remembered the feeling of Max's arms around him in his worst moments, letting him know just how she felt about the thought of losing him...

Bennett was shaking his head, still sounding mildly surprised that he'd found a woman - especially one as great as Marianne - who found him attractive and witty and charming. "... and someone to care _for_..." he added...

"_What can I do?"_

"_Stay with me, please?"_

"_I'm right here."_

"_You won't leave?"_

"_I'm not going anywhere."_

Bennett suddenly became aware that he'd been mooning again - glad at least this time it was in front of his more sympathetic cousin, Logan - and laughed self-consciously. "But I guess you know all about that."

Logan snorted, "I'm not a very good example of that, Ben. Val and I didn't even make it two years..."

Bennett looked at his cousin and smirked, dryly, "that's not who I meant..." He watched as Logan rolled his eyes, an awkward discomfort surfacing again as it seemed to do whenever the topic was broached. "Speaking of whom ... " Bennett grinned, "how is Max?

Logan dropped his eyes to the pristine linen covering the tabletop, then looked across the elegant dining room. "She's fine," he managed to answer, finally looking back to the other Cale.

"You know, Mom was convinced that all the time you spent talking to Daphne meant that you two might hook up again, but I don't buy it" Bennett had managed to shake off his newlywed reverie to fish around in this still-entertaining new topic from his wedding, unattached Logan and the unattached women around him. "I didn't dare tell her, but Marianne and I are betting on Max."

Logan blinked at his cousin in some surprise at the blatant curiosity his younger cousin displayed, which seemed to cause Bennett's interest to peak even higher - he peered at Logan owlishly, a hopeful smile curling at the corner of his lips. In sudden amusement, Logan rolled his eyes and laughed, shaking his head hopelessly.

"C'mon, Logan, admit it - you and Max...?"

Logan looked back at Bennett, his own smile slowly lifting across his features as he replayed all the moments, all the danger, all the close calls and frustrations, all the pain and the joy ... all the wonder of his moments, with Max...

Eyes dropping away again softly, Logan smiled softly to himself at their complex, crazy relationship, before looking back to his cousin. With a sigh of wry contentment, his mouth quirked up a bit more, and he shrugged, "it's complicated..."

**oooooOOOOOOooooo**


	2. If Only

**DISCLAIMER:** Dark Angel characters lovingly borrowed from Cameron & Eglee, or those taking from them. No profits realized.

**A/N:** Thanks, everyone, for the reviews & PMs & all the faves/alerts/etc for the first mini-fic in this series (the responses are _really_ a boost! :D) Here's another little fic, this one written in response to the prompt, "**If**." Any and all comments would be great!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

**_IF ONLY_**

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

She had done this once before, had called to break off dinner plans because of her raging hormones. Last time she had stayed away, afraid of ruining things between them; this time she did the same thing, still too early in their slowly evolving relationship to risk breaking his ribs ... or finally running him off.

"I'm sorry, but I think..." she hesitated, her voice sounding strained, over the phone, her words halting. Even now that he knew this final, awful truth about her, though he knew it all and had never found her strange little engineered self repugnant, it was still hard for Max to lay it out for him. This ugly little truth had been the only thing, really, that she hadn't faced with him, directly and with candor. Logan's heart went out to her...

"It's been four months already?" he asked gently.

"Almost five. Logan, I hate this ... I hate doing this to you ... and what it's doing to me..." It wasn't often that he heard her voice break, and when he did, it was hard to hear, her embarrassment and anger, her frustration at Manticore ... her sadness ... "I could take about anything else they dished up, if only I didn't get _this_ .. this insane ..." She tailed off, having fewer words to describe how the cycles made her feel than she had to describe how she felt _about_ them. "Anyway. Dinner, tonight... it's not a good idea – for either of us. I'm sorry..."

"Max... look, it's okay. I know you aren't yourself when this happens, and ... I understand..." he offered.

"If only ... if only I didn't go into _heat_, like some reject alley cat..." she finally used the word she found distasteful when applied to her behavior.

_Not like Max, to voice regrets_, Logan thought, _especially about something no one could change._ That trait was itself a testament to her resiliency, given her life. He listened between the words and considered that here, she'd already said it twice – three times, actually – _'if only.'_ Definitely not like Max ... so then what was it? Was she looking for him to fix things, or just to vent a little? _How can I make it easier for you, Max?_ he wondered, _what do you want?_

_Comfort, maybe,_ he decided. Sympathy from someone who knew what was going on...

"Max, really, it's okay ..." he began soothing...

"No, Logan, it's _not,_" he could hear the frustration, the emotional weight finally catching up to her. "Just for once ... if only I could take a pass, y'know? Be normal?"

He grinned to himself, suddenly. "If only the Pulse had never happened," he said wryly.

She paused, silent, on the other end of the line. Finally, almost emotional in her hesitancy, she asked, "... the ...Pulse?"

"Yeah. _If only,_" he echoed her words. "If only it hadn't wrecked everything."

There was another long pause, and Logan wondered if she would catch it. _It's what you need, Max,_ he was suddenly sure...

After long moments, she tried, almost timidly, "if only I wasn't running from Lydecker."

"Yeah, _if only_," he agreed readily, drawling the words out, relieved to hear her reply in kind, as cautious as it was. "If only I hadn't been shot."

He heard a little gulp, probably not expecting that he'd be so flippant about his Big Life Changing Event. He grinned to hear that he'd surprised her. "O..oh, yeah," she managed to recover fairly quickly. Another pause, shorter this time, and she resumed, "if only I wasn't tricked up."

"If only I wasn't so focused on my mission," he countered quickly.

"Yeah," she finally laughed a little. "If only I wasn't late getting back to work," she added as Normal's bleating in the background was heard behind her words.

"If only..." he agreed, softly. "If only you were feeling better ... but dinner can wait, you know ... or can be ready, whenever you like. It's whatever you want, Max, whatever you're comfortable with." He paused, and added, meaningfully, "I can take it, you know."

"I know..." She paused, and said quietly, as if maybe avoiding being overheard in the noisy spaces of Jam Pony, "not sure what I'd do otherwise... you know, if we hadn't hooked up..."

"That's the only 'if only' that's not negotiable, Max ..." Logan's voice was soft and soothing and absolutely serious. "I wouldn't change you dropping into my life for any of that other stuff. You know that, right?"

"Really?" she asked, just to hear him say it again.

"Really," he promised.

Mmm." She pretended to consider it.

"So... 'if only' you happened to stop by tonight, anyway..." he began. "No pressure, no big deal... but you don't have to hide from me... not even now."

"But ... if I did ... Logan, I'm not sure I can stop myself..." She now sounded apologetic, "you know – from..."

But in the Penthouse, on his end of the line, Logan Cale was sitting with his eyes shut tightly, a big grin on his face, as he knew he had to risk her reaction to say what he just couldn't help himself saying in response...

"_If only..."_

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo


	3. Soft

**DISCLAIMER:** Dark Angel characters lovingly borrowed from Cameron & Eglee, or those taking from them. No profits realized.

**A/N:** Another little ficlet, this mostly for AURLCO (Authors United to Rip Logan's Clothes Off) and may have also been listed for the "Nekkid 40" prompt challenge (one loses track, after a while!) As always, if you hit the review button, I'll listen!

**xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**

**_SOFT_**

**xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**

It was only their third time, making love.

The first had been frenzied and hungry, borne of long months in denial and stubbornness and assumed unrequited desire. The second time had been self-conscious and nervous, each of them keenly aware of the feverish passion of the first time, each awkward and ticklish and desperately hoping that the other still wanted this, wanted to be together, as much as they did.

But the third time...

The third time was slow and sensual, warm, beginning in the glow of flickering candles over a perfect dinner, the gentle sounds of light rain on the windows and low music in the air, and the brush of her lips on his, the soothing tracing of his fingertips across her skin...

In perfect grace and movement, unhurried but anticipating, they moved into Logan's bedroom, into sweet-smelling sheets and thick, downy pillows, slowly undressing each other amid kisses and tender touch, slowly removing one piece of clothing then another from each other, each time moving to intertwine a little closer until they were lost in each other's arms, skin to skin, warm against the other's bare flesh as they made love with the hope and thirst and devotion each felt for the other...

And in the stillness afterward, Logan cradled Max close along his side as she tenderly stroked his broad, strong chest, her fingers playing with the curling brown curls along his gently sculpted muscles. He looked at her tenderly and stole a kiss before he glanced down at her hand lingering there, then to her again, a smile slowly beginning.

Max stroked the fine, downy hair on her lover's bare form and slowly leaned down to kiss the strong, fuzzy chest below her, then looked back up into the magical green eyes, waiting for her. "Soft," she explained...

**xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


	4. Frost

**A/N:** This one was posted in LJ's "Crossovers100" in response to the prompt, "colorless," for my Logan/Tony (DA/NCIS) claim and as a drabble response for the prompt "frost,' but mostly as a birthday present for **Mari83** (who, after all, originally provided the drabble-prompt). More in the pre-Dark Angel lives of cousins Tony DiNozzo & Logan Cale, circa 2002...

(And for those who PM'd me about pending fic – updates in the works, I promise!)

**xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**

_**Frost**_

**xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**

It covered everything.

Blades of grass, now stiff and whitened, turned from soft green tufts into small, rime-covered spears that crunched with each step, scraping at the stillness of the chilled, damp morning. It filled the air in small, staccato bursts from voices too distant for him to hear, their terse, grim words spoken only as needed by grey-faced men, ashen-faced women. It settled amid all the forms and shapes before him, all the images, across both moving, human forms and cold stone markers, playing no favorites. It underscored the scene before DiNozzo's eyes as being devoid of color, varied only by the place along the colorless spectrum each image fell, from black, to deep, mournful slate and all the way to the dingy grey-white of the overcast skies, blackened bare branches scraping across it.

There was no color:

Black hearse.

Black coats and umbrellas, black limousines and black shoes.

Black caskets. Two of them, gleaming; even their pewter fittings glinted in dull, stately gray.

No color... until he came close, through and around the people, to see, at the front of the crowd, the stubbornly brave face, pale and blinking, with its reddened nose and unnaturally flushed cheeks framing the green eyes glittering their anguish, all of his cousin's thirteen years working to 'be a man,' to be strong...

"Cuz..." DiNozzo choked, reaching out, touching cold wool coat and shivering body, feeling, in answer, cold hands grasping his topcoat desperately ... brushing the cold, wet, tear-streaked cheek as it sought to burrow into the comfort of his chest ... pulling close the shuddering, chilled form of his cousin as they both now fought not to give in to the pain...

And another reddened nose, and two more wetly glittering green eyes, brought their mournful, tragic color to the harsh and icy morning...

**xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


	5. Beginnings

**DISCLAIMER:** Dark Angel characters lovingly borrowed from Cameron & Eglee, or those taking from them. No profits realized.

**A/N:** The first ficlet for Prompt #1, Beginnings, in the Fanfic100 Challenge on LJ. RL prevented any chapters being done this weekend, so am catching up with mini-fic... (And the mini-fic love mini – or maxi – reviews, too!)

_**SUMMARY:** Not a normal couple, not a normal world – they may not know what they have, and may not know what's ahead, but they're definitely under each other's skin._

_**Prelude**_

They didn't know it yet, but they had brushed paths at least a dozen times before...

_... a bicycle trip whizzing by the image of the famous green eyes, painted high and bold along an otherwise grimy wall..._

_... a too-brief, dizzying conversation with a man who claimed that the government had been breeding super-humans, his story too outlandish and too well articulated to be easily forgotten..._

_... a sudden hush in riders' waiting room at Jam Pony when the regular drone of television fare was interrupted, everyone glancing up to the earnest eyes and the zealous words, listening with the grave intensity that comes when one listens to the only unvarnished information source one had ..._

_... a hasty call to a local messenger service to deliver information, identities and cash to a family desperate to leave town, when for him to do so, in even a dirty, aging but working Pontiac, would have been too out of the ordinary..._

They didn't know it yet, but the moment their eyes met, they were pointed toward the path their lives would share one day. The sheer audacity of their meeting – _his delight in being 'merely' a crime victim, her effortless dispatch of a trained bodyguard nearly three times her size_ – was enough to get the other's attention and bring their thoughts back, again and again, to what had happened that night.

It was enough to cause the girl to amuse herself with the thought of returning to observe the man, with or without letting him see her there. But even more, it was enough to rouse the man into looking for the girl, into finding her, even baiting her when she ran from him a second time. It was enough to commit his own burglary, of a sort, leading the girl to confront him, to demand why he was getting too close; it was enough to survive the sinister and dangerous implications of his findings to lead him into deception and false charm to confirm his suspicions.

They didn't know it yet; they needed only a little more time. Each was still too wrapped up in their own missions and needs and plans, just yet.

Driven by his passion for justice, he wouldn't see that he asked her to risk everything, should she be seen by those still hunting her. Driven by her life on the run, she wouldn't consider risking exposure for anything other than finding her siblings or the money she needed to buy help to do so. And in walking out, Max set in motion the final pieces of their destiny:

_...a spray of bullets..._

_...a thwarted second attempt at killing the man and the improvised, turnabout assassination of the one ordering his death..._

_... the stirring of concern and guilt prompting an unannounced visit and the reawakening of purpose and mission spurring the return of the legend..._

_... an old photograph of a freckle-faced boy..._

They didn't know it yet, but their hour had come. Forever forward, their lives would be inextricably bound together, one shared path. It would not ever be simple, and would rarely be easy. But it would always be theirs ... always, Max and Logan...


	6. Discovery

DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel characters lovingly borrowed from Cameron & Eglee, or those taking from them. No profits realized.

A/N: Another busy weekend so another silly litle ficlet published elsewhere as a part of the LJ Lover100 challenge. The prompt (and thus, the title): _"Discovery."_

* * *

**DISCOVERY**

* * *

_There. _

Staring at him, accusative; shrieking its hideous, insistent truth like a banner writ large across the heavens. Of all the events that had pummeled Logan Cale – death, injury, plague – none could best what he faced now. Here, this... this...

_**There.**_

Logan continued to stare, fixated, curled down like a question mark to gape at the middle of his bare, sculpted chest, still damp from his shower, unmoving, rigid even, his hand frozen mid-air. After several moments, his hand, its movement infinitesimal, slowly moved toward a spot mid-chest upon which he'd fixed his laser-like gaze...

Max finally capitulated, unable to wait him out. _"What?"_ she insisted, her voice full of affectionate exasperation and occasionally tested patience. _No blood, so whatever it is, it must just be Logan being ... __**Logan**__._ She waited, and saw his eyes move slowly up to hers, the shocked, mute expression carrying the horror, his eyes wide, jaw left open, stunned.

They stared at each other for long moments, frozen like that, until Max's eyebrows again went up and she shrugged, hand lifted in question, silently urging him to spill.

His jaw snapped shut; his eyes snapped down. "Nothing." He clipped.

"Oh, come on." The inevitable eye-rolling followed. "A scene like that and you tell me it's _nothing?_"

He looked back up to her quickly, frowned, and looked away again, now with his own petulant shrug. "It's nothing. I overreacted," he minimized, pivoting to push past her out of his bath suite and on toward his closet, towel still casually draped across his lap where he dropped it after toweling off – and before seeing the gruesome sight...

"Oh, yeah, like that's a news flash. What was it this time?" she teased, following him to come around in front of him, ready to work on him and wrest his secrets from him. _The great and powerful Eyes Only really needs to retool his will power_, Max considered with a smug little smirk to herself, knowing just the right combination of waving her derriere in his face and offering tantalizing little kisses could break her subject every time...

But this time he didn't seem to be playing along. "C'mon, Max, I have work to do..." he began his eternal mantra, making ready to burrow into his clothing hanging in front of him, pretending they weren't both still warm, naked and damp...

"Oh yeah? More important than this?" Clad only in one of Logan's soft tee shirts, her skin still fragrant with soap and steam, Max came close to sit balanced on the wheel under his left elbow then leaned provocatively over toward the other wheel at his right, effectively draping herself across his lap. "What if I have an important scoop for Eyes Only, right here and now?"

He grimaced and shook his head, trying to be the responsible adult. "Max..."

"Hey, c'mon, I want to know," she wheedled. "You looked pretty shook," she allowed a small laugh but focused again, sincere, "and maybe I can help. Nothing is so terrible..."

"Easy for you to say," he grumbled, but wavered, then shrugged, lifting his eyes to her. "I overreacted," he repeated, with a sheepish shrug. "I was just ... caught off-guard."

"By your _stomach?_" she blurted, her sympathetic demeanor slipping a little in her skepticism before she could rein it in.

"_No,_" he matched her exasperation with his, and, not meeting her eyes, grudged, "my chest. Or... not my chest..." he stalled, well aware of how it would sound. "A chest hair."

"A chest hair?" she echoed, not getting it. "What would y..."

"A _grey_ chest hair, Max." His eyes swung up to meet hers now, almost defiantly, he held her gaze as he admitted, "a grey chest hair. _A grey hair_... There," He pointed, then looked away again, bothered both by how it sounded and how he felt about the little intruder.

Max gazed at the vexed face, and wondered what in the world she should do with the man – rib him? Flatter or sympathize or cajole? _Love_ him? She shrugged, once again tenderly amused by one of his cranky, surprising moments which at base were borne of his love for her and his concern that he 'measure up.' In a neutral tone, watching for his reaction, she offered, "it's just a grey hair, Logan..."

"'Just a grey hair,'" he murmured, echoing her words, still stung.

"Well, geez, Logan, what's the big dealio?" she challenged. "Just get rid if it." Before he could react, with Manticore driven speed she reached in, grabbed the offending curl, and plucked it quickly and smartly from his chest.

"Ow!" His hands flew up to protect his tender chest, too late, as it happened. "Hey..." he griped.

"Outa sight, outa mind..." Max sing-songed back to him, with a satisfied smile. "Next crisis?"

"Oh, yeah?" He clearly wasn't finished with this one yet. "Well, what are you gonna do about the rest of them, as they come in – on my chest again, or on my head ... or..."

"Other places?" She leered, grinning hungrily.

"..._or_..." he repeated, emphasizing the syllable to point out he'd been interrupted, then dropped his voice, hesitating. In a moment he managed to go on, his often-mulled concerns suddenly taking shape, even less comic to him as he mulled all the ramifications ... and more persistent. "... wrinkles ... age lines... "

"Rings around your middle we can count, like a tree?" Her sense of fun hadn't wavered but her expression had softened, seeing the honest concern in his handsome face. At his look – now nearly mournful, she saw, and not enjoying this at all, she tried to make him see reason. "Logan, you're barely over thirty. You're not that old..."

"...but I'll always be older than you," he replied immediately, clearly having had this debate at least with himself in the past. "And my God, look at you; you're perfect now and while those bastards at Manticore may have been evil and demented, they weren't crazy..." Logan's tirade slowed up just a bit, as he stopped to consider his words as he said them. "They probably gave you genes to keep you this beautiful for five lifetimes..." He glanced up at her, guiltily, but unable to stop there, seeing that she was at least listening to his long-held fear, finally aired, " and I'm sure those male X-5s will be something to see for a lot more years than any of us mortals are."

"No matter how sexy you may be now?" she baited quickly.

"No matter how sexy I may be n..." Logan's ears caught up to his emotionally driven response and, with a glance up to the self-satisfied expression Max wore, realized what she'd managed to get him to repeat. Stubborn, insecure, he simply snorted and looked away again, wishing he would hear her affirm her last words. "'Sexy,'" he muttered, under his breath ...

"Sexy," she affirmed with a nod and not a moment's hesitation. She looked at the nearly naked man, head tipped down in his latest angst, and smiled tenderly. "Hey, old man," she said softly, shifting now to slide a provocative knee along his thigh, easing herself as she did so half into his lap. "Haven't you caught on yet just how sexy you are? To any female not on Cindy's team? ... to _me?_" Max lowered herself onto his thigh, her back leg still out behind her as she moved tantalizingly and slowly, ever closer to him, but not yet fully his. "Like just now – wasn't the extra hour in bed and thirty minutes in the shower sort of a clue?"

He shrugged, affecting a pout, but unable to resist looking up to her and letting his arms pull her closer. "Those wrinkles were just the water," he managed to quip, despite his continuing reticence. "There will be some that come on their own soon enough..."

"Probably on me, too," Max assured him, having no idea what was really in store for her, but meaning every word, as she gently kissed the tiny crows feet he likely hadn't noticed yet, the gentle laugh lines she loved to see crinkle in happiness. "And if you can handle mine, I know yours will be just as sexy as the rest of you."

He found the courage to lean forward and nibble her lip. "Grey hair too?"

She grinned, pressing her form now up against his and squirming hungrily. "Grey hair too," she purred, and curled down to nuzzle his chest. Looking up to meet his eyes for approval, she slowly moved to draw the towel, still draped across his lap, out of the way. "What do you say I start looking for them now?"


	7. Aromatherapy

**DISCLAIMER:** Dark Angel characters lovingly borrowed from Cameron & Eglee, or those taking from them. No profits realized.

**A/N:** Not enough M/L on FFN for this holiday weekend, so here's a little bit of mooshiness that was both a birthday present for Griever, and a response to the prompt, "Smell," in the LJ "Lover100" challenge. Because if there's one thing upon which most M/L shippers seem to agree ... it's that Logan smells _yummy_...

_**Aromatherapy**_

Before Logan, Max's sense of smell had been an afterthought, low on her list of things to notice. Manticore didn't emphasize its use all that much and, given her life on the run in a post-Pulse economy, its use was limited primarily to her self-preservation: the main things she noticed were smells marking things to avoid, or their absence, indicating that there was nothing too noxious in the vicinity. Never a girly-girl, and surrounded by the decay and destitution on the streets of Seattle, Max never thought to 'stop and smell the roses,' figuratively or literally. Not only could Max not afford to let her guard down to do so, it never occurred to her that there was all that much out there worth stopping to smell.

Before Logan, that is.

And after? She'd become a secret hedonist; intoxicated by the wealth of aromas he offered and drunk with the bountiful variety of scents she now associated with him.

From the first: she'd broken into a penthouse that held the smell of a home well tended, those faintly mingled scents of soaps for house and body, dishes and laundry, in a place where grime was conspicuously absent. Then Logan appeared in Crash and as she walked beside him, she was taken by what she would later come to think of as "Logan-scent," that indescribable thing his personal body chemistry did to a mix of sandlewood soap and designer shampoo. Her return to his penthouse the next night found it now layered with hints of fresh vegetables, garlic and roasting poultry that made her mouth water. To her surprise, so did that heady mix of soap and shampoo she smelled as she stood near him, gazing together, in the mirror...

Too soon, his world took a painful, abrupt turn, and suddenly, the next time Max saw Logan his delicious Logan-scent was all but masked by hospital disinfectant and burning incendiaries. For those first months thereafter, his penthouse was shrouded in olfactory reminders she often wondered if he noticed: the lingering tang of wood and stone dust in the air, even weeks after workmen had come to drill and cut and pound his penthouse into submission to the newly needed wheelchair, the crisp-heavy mint of muscle balm that sometimes followed a tough session with Bling ... the abrupt, accusative odor of sterile packaging holding new and hated supplies.

But over time, those odors softened with familiarity and lessened with Logan's growing proficiency with his new life. More and more, that comforting, compelling Logan-scent began to return to taunt her with its power over her common sense, but it shared its space with the many and varied aromas of Cale culinary creativity, with bubbling sauces and sizzing sautés, with roasting fowl or vegetables. It was rare that the penthouse didn't have at least some small tease of a meal yet to come: the promising scents of fresh herbs, the gentle whiff of fruit just coming ripe on the counter, the first, bold aroma from a new pot of coffee...

By then, it wasn't only the penthouse that carried a wealth of scents to Max's senses: Logan's trusty but hapless Aztek often had its own encyclopedia of smells, from gasoline to grime, from motor oil to aging vinyl, to road dust and whatever muck the tires and undercarriage last picked up. The markets where she joined Logan to hunt provisions for his culinary masterpieces always offered a festival of smells, from the vendors' wares to the vendors themselves, from the food cooking in outdoor stalls to the garbage rotting in the streets and everything in the market in between, no visit was ever quite the same as the last. Max often wondered if it was the added variety of smells that energized Logan into these forays, as they always seemed to lift his spirits in ways other outings did not, even as he was grumbling about not finding just the right tomatoes or mourning the loss of real sour cream.

And just when Max thought she might have experienced all the scents Logan might have to offer, there was that fateful, wondrous night when she appeared for dinner as usual, but before he could fill the air with his usual enticing efforts, the power went out, when along with his other beautiful candles he drew out new ones that perfumed the air with an exotic mix of heady spices, similar to his soaps and shampoo and Logan-scent but with an allure of their own ... when the black-out lingered on and Max did, too, sharing stories and laughter and time with Logan ... when he offered her strawberries and boyishly held one up for her, when she playfully leaned in to bite into the red, ripe fruit, the burst of sweet scent accompanied by the juicy rich flavor and sticky sweet taste on her lips... when she found the courage to lean in again and brush his lips with her juice-covered ones, breathing in deep his Logan-scent and the mingled subtle traces of wine and strawberries, of the herbs he'd been crushing when the power died and the rich, fine wool of his sweater...

After that, there were a good many minutes when even Max didn't notice the scents around her, so absorbed and astounded she was by being engulfed by more than just Logan's scent. Far from ruining the evening, the black-out revealed a whole new chapter of intoxicating aromatics – the scent of his sweet, clean sheets ... of his exotic candles mixed with the masculine, cedarwood scents of his bedroom... the evocative scent of massage oil, magically produced as if waiting for such a night ... the fresh, familiar scents of his soaps and shampoos now not only his, but shared with her in his steamy, misty scented shower...

There were new scents and old intermingled with the heady perfume of their lovemaking; smell merged with touch as Max curled into Logan's exquisite form, wound her way around his muscular shoulders and lightly furred chest, and reveled in the feeling of his arms, circling her ... once their barriers dropped, they stayed bound close, in each other's arms, all that evening and night, making love, dozing, making love again...

When the power crackled back on, spilling light in from the hall and lifting soft music in from the front room, it found Max resting contentedly in Logan's arms. As he dozed lightly, Max lay surrounded in the hypnotic, hedonistic luxury around her, again breathing deeply to savor the rarefied scents that all mingled to now mean 'Logan' to her, smiling to herself quietly to recognize that even in their love making, Logan's elegant bedroom, his fine linens and thick, sweet-smelling towels just added new, aromatic layers to this new-found appreciation she had for their intoxicating power over her...

She nuzzled against Logan gently and he stirred, even in sleep drawing her a little closer in his arms, his sated smile deepening slightly. Easing herself slowly from him so not to wake him, Max started to get up when she felt his arm pull her back again, gently. "Max," came the blurry words, "don't go..."

"Not going," she promised. "I was just gonna turn off the lights..." When he didn't protest she slipped out of bed and switched off the lights and music suddenly back with the power, then came back to bed silently, smiling affectionately to see Logan fast asleep. Slipping into the fragrant sheets, she smiled even wider as Logan roused to pull her close, nuzzling into her neck.

"Mmmmm..." he drew a deep, satisfied breath and hummed into her hair. "Max..?" he murmured, sleep still threatening to take him back. "Have I ever told you that you smell great?"


End file.
